DC's Housing Market is Sizzling

WASHINGTON (WUSA9)-- Diana Bailey is one of the top residential real estate agents in the District of Columbia.

She says the housing market--only five years removed from the crash--is now exploding. There are multiple offers for a single property-most of them above the asking price and houses that once stood on the market for months are now going in weeks if not days.

Bailey is quite fond of a spacious house she was showing off on Western avenue on Tuesday. The asking price 1.45 million dollars. She's confident she'll get it and adds the prices in DC are still very low when compared to housing in other great cities in Europe.

DC realtors tell WUSA9 there are several reasons for the surge in the DC Housing market:

#1 A strong local economy.

#2 Interest rates that are still fairly low at about 4%

#3 the influx of 11-12 hundred new residents wanting to move into the District

#4 the limited supply of residential housing in the District.

Realtors agree its a seller's market with long time homeowners cashing in and downsizing close by or leaving the area for locations where they will get a better climate and bigger bang for their retirement dollars.

Long time DC residents with no plans to sell say they like the benefits and services that seem to come with the new residents.

Lewis Ferguson of the city's Trinidad neighborhood in Northeast says there will soon be a street car nearby, and the H street corridor revitalization is a big plus.

Although homes on his block are now going for a half million dollars Ferguson, a retired DC school administration has no plans to sell.

He's been in trinidad since 1987, through the bad times he concedes. Now its time to experience the good times.